'Nature Wars': It Is a Jungle out Ther Jim Sterba Loves Animals -- and Humans, Too. He Makes a Solid Case for Killing Animals That Become Pests or Worse, Even If They Seem 'Lovable.'

Article excerpt

"NATURE WARS: THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF HOW WILDLIFE COMEBACKS
TURNED BACKYARDS INTO BATTLEGROUNDS"

By Jim Sterba.

Crown ($26).

About 10 years ago, Phyllis Marchand, the mayor of Prince-ton
Township in New Jersey, hired a nonprofit company called White
Buffalo Inc. to use sharpshooters to cull the deer population, which
had grown to 94 per square mile. Protesters staged demonstrations
and candlelight vigils. Deer guts were splattered on the roof of
Mayor Marchand's car. The township's animal control officer -- after
his cat was crushed to death and his dog was poisoned --began
wearing a bulletproof vest.

Conflicts like this one, involving geese, turkeys, beavers, black
bears and feral cats as well as deer, now occur in hundreds of
neighborhoods throughout the United States. Communities remain
polarized, according to Jim Sterba, a veteran reporter for The New
York Times and The Wall Street Journal, because many formerly scarce
wild animals and birds have used suburban sprawl, which offers them
an "almost perfect ecological niche," to become overabundant,
constituting a clear and present danger to human beings and other
species. Many Americans, who spend 90 percent of their time indoors,
embrace pets and wild animals as "sentient creatures" and have been
socialized by movies like "Bambi" and "Gentle Ben" to feel repulsion
at the idea of harming them. They believe, mistakenly but with the
best of intentions, that all God's creatures will survive and thrive
if left undisturbed.

In "Nature Wars," Mr. Sterba, a hunter and self-styled
conservationist, takes on the "unrealistic and highly reductionist"
claims of animal rights and animal protection advocates. He makes a
provocative, controversial, but quite compelling case that we should
not -- and cannot -- opt out of active management and stewardship of
wildlife.